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Topic: Products I'm gonna offer soon (Read 9533 times)

A month ago I finished a robotics product of mine ( its a secret for now) . I've been going through the manufacturing phase - you know the planning , getting parts , making calls, etc. The robotics product will come out in stores in 2-5 months time .

Anyways the reason I was making this post was because I could start manufacturing 50 dollar robot boards similar to this one : http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=5268.msg40956#msg40956. The layout would be very different , but it would be more or less the same features. This extra PCB would not add any significant cost to the manufacturing run of my product, in fact it might even lower costs since the robot board uses almost the same components as my product (save money in bulk orders).

It would be layed out similar to the Axon - like a miniature Axon - based off the ATmega168 ,USB uart( bootloader also?) and sell for approximately the same cost as an Arduino ($35).

What do you guys think of this? Would you buy one? Any suggestions?Any comments?

P.S. The robotics product is really cool , but I don't want to release details just yet. Hint: It can be used to make giant robots . But no more hints than that.

all professionally done, soldered by a company .Like I said, I'll be forced to charge at least 35 dollars for it (because of all the costs for manufacturing and soldering) - is there enough demand for this?

I was 1/4 way through my schematic and then I realize - hey I'm basically making the Freeduino! So I took the Freeduino files and I'm just modifying them a bit and changing the layout.

Heres my reasons :Arduino and Freeduino do basically the same things my board doesIt will cost me more to make these boards then a company who makes FreeduinosI won't make so much profit since I have to compete with the prices of the Arduino and stay below $40.

There is no perfect board for everyone. Because aplications are different. However, if you can make the boards with 3 pin connectors, with jumpers to select the power to the digital 3 pin headers, mini USB connector with the chip soldered, that would be perfect for small robots. Users can use the Arduino software (or just plain C) and can practice soldering their own headers, sockets, LEDs, resistors, etc. I may be wrong, but none of the Arduino compatibles has 3 pin headers for all the pins, so you may have a piece of the market there.

You may consider to use DIP version of the microcontroller so the user can plug in ATmega8, ATmega168 or the new ATmega328P.

no but then again , is it all worth it in the end - I have to factor in labor.

I expect maybe 100-300 sales a year at around 10-20 dollars profit . Not that much cash... 1000- 6000 dollars a year from that . Its significant I guess, but I have to think about all the labor and stuff.

Admin is perfectly right. I just want to stress out something. Make sure the microcontroller is DIP version, not SMD. Because noobs may brick it, so they will just change the micro, not the whole board. Back in 2005 someone told me about a manufacturer in Chicago who had good prices and who could make the boards different colors soldermask and silk screen. Some of the colors were cheaper... Let me know if you want me to look him up for you.

As for the board layout, other than jumpers for power selection for the headers, I would like it to have separate headers for TTL serial, jumpers to conect it to the USB chip, headers for I2C interface with power and groud (4 pin header). If you toy with the ideea of the bootloader, try the AdaBoot bootloader, since they say it is universal and also works with Arduino programming environment. Maybe make it in the form of the modules we talked about building as a comunity project, so we actually can use it directly for that.

I've been toying with the idea for some time of getting into hobby robotics sales but its a hard market to get into at first. I could see after establishing yourself in the market you might be able to produce something like this product after you have the capital to keep your cost low. What you really need is something that will fill a space in the market and be unique. Then you are not competing with others and just have to worry about making a little bit of profit off each unit. Then once your name is known and you have a supply chain setup as well as distributors (ie sparkfun or one of a thousand other hobby style electronic sources) then you can afford to take the chance on something that will strengthen your name but might not make a lot of money. The main problem is finding something that fits a nitch market that has not already been done. might want to try something the the Maxbotics EZ-1 sonar sensor. Making complex sensors easy to use and cheaper is always a good idea.

As far as headers are concerned I would see a problem if someone sold me a board with no headers on it. The problem I always have is them not including the headers in the package so I have to get some of my own.

if people had a choice between a regular arduino and one with 3 pin headers - they'd pick the one with the 3 pin headers

I think you should say robot builders instead of people... Arduino comunity has lots of people that don't build robots. They are using Arduino for lots of different stuff, using shields for interfacing. For some of them, a RoboShield would be a great addition, and some of them would buy a Roboduino board right away. There is a demand waiting to be filled. I would go ahead and build both a shield and a board. Heck, people who allready own a board will buy a shield and the others will buy directly the board, since it will be cheaper than Diecimila + RoboShield.

USB would be nice as long as it doesnt take up a huge amount of space on the board.Maybe leave out ICSP pins to make it smaller? The AVRISP needs a usb port to plug into your computer anyways, so might as well stick to the USB bootloader.

why not add some of the ports connected to a mosfet or transistor so the ports can turn devices on and off at will without risking damage to the controller. that way sharp rangefinders etc.. can be turned on and off by the microcontroller. (or for a better example if you have a line follower with 5 ir led's, the controller struggles to provide power to all led's on its own but through a mosfet or transistor it can reliably turn them on and off allowing advanced functionality such as background cancelling and modulation).

You could add an i2c dedicated bus etc...

The trouble is knowing where to stop I suppose... Making a simple board with too many features can eventually turn into something difficult to use, always remember that you know how it works because you made it but try and think from the end users point of view, you can easily overwhelm somebody by adding too many features even though you or I think that they would be a good advantage. The only way to make a really well functional board is to allow it to work in a basic way and then switch the extra bits on when the users are ready for it through well structured documentation. I'm trying to create a board for release myself along with a few different types of hardware bases etc... but it really is difficult to know and plan for what the market knows and expects.

(welcome to the commercial developing world, the more people and competition there is the faster the future gets developed!)

You may consider to use DIP version of the microcontroller so the user can plug in ATmega8, ATmega168 or the new ATmega328P.

Thought it was a typo?

And yes, please add to the list of features the I2C bus (with power and ground pins, and place for pull-up resistors, just in case one needs them). Use the vertical mount resistor (0.1" spacing) for the pull-ups.

So when will the secret be out on the market? Does it make french fries? Hmm... I should build a robot that makes fries... Just kidding!

if I do unregulated pins for 6 servos then those pins arent regulated which may cause problems for people who want more sensors. So how many pins should be dedicated for servos? Minimum of 2 , maximum of 6.

So for that group of 6 servo pins add an other 3 pin header where the user can use a jumper (like those on the PC motherboard) to select regulated or unregulated power. I got this ideea from the OOPic-R board, where there are 3 groups of 5 pins, each group with its own jumper to select the kind of power you want. Check out my old board here:http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=2228.msg14977#msg14977

or zoom in and check out the left side of the board where the servo pins are:

I think I'm gonna stop by the I2C - i thinks its too much. Maybe in version 2 .

That is too bad, since I2C is good for micro to micro communication (keeps the UART free for other stuff), for newer sensors like compass, Sharp GP2D12 I2C version, etc. The nicest part is that you can stack up many devices on the bus and it works perfectly.

Never mind, I just figured that SCL and SDA are the last 2 analog pins, so if you install the 3 pin headers close to each other, I can have the I2C bus split in two 2 pin female connectors and plug them in an L shape, where 2 pins are power and ground and the other 2 pins are SCL and SDA. The only thing that is missing (pull-up resistors) I can add on one of the slaves. But if you think you can squeeze them on your board, that would be awesome.